The Good Good Pig by Sy Montgomery Page B

agility, endurance, and intelligence. What distinguishes border collies is their outlook on life. They need meaningful work or they go crazy. Whether that work is herding sheep or chasing Frisbees, border collies are compulsive perfectionists, and do everything with incredible intensity and dedication.
    Some call them maniacal.
    The drive to herd is so powerful that, lacking sheep, border collies will herd squirrels, children, buses, even insects. They are exceptionally independent, emotional, and willful. In competitions, if the shepherd makes a mistake that costs them the ribbon, the dog might hold it against him for days. And border collies are so brilliant that they can figure out just about anything. They instantly understand how to open cabinets, doors, and refrigerators. One border collie (Devon from Jon Katz’s delightful
A Dog Year
) routinely broke out of his picket fence by systematically testing for one loose slat—and then always pushed it closed after the escape. He was also known to unwrap Katz’s ham and cheese sandwich and carefully remove and eat only the ham, leaving the rest of the sandwich pristine.
    I wondered—briefly—if adding another potentially diabolical genius to the household was really a good idea.
    After all, just that week, our pig had been in police custody again.
    I’d been in the “big city” of Keene (well, it was a city, anyway), a forty-minute drive away, teaching a short writing course at Antioch New England Graduate School. I’d let Chris out on his tether, and asked Howard to periodically check on him. The first check, he didn’t see the pig, but saw his rope, leading downhill into a mud wallow among some trees, was taut. Second check, the rope was in the exact same position. Howard followed the rope. There was no pig at the end.
    Howard ran down Route 137 shaking a coffee can full of grain. Mike Cass came up the street to meet him.
    â€œLooking for something?” Mike asked.
    â€œYeah,” replied Howard, “About two hundred fifty pounds of back bacon.”
    But Ed already had Chris in custody and was leading him back to our barn with apples.
    The next night the pig was on TV. He’d made a cameo appearance on New Hampshire Public Television, in a segment filmed at our house by a local producer, Liz Klein. The show was ostensibly about my book,
Walking with the Great Apes,
which had been published that spring. The show had interviews with me and clips of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. But what everyone remembered was the shot of Christopher eagerly trotting behind me down to his Pig Plateau, trailed by the chickens.
    â€œSaw your pig on TV,” Mike said to Howard when they next met at the Cash Market.
    â€œYes,” Howard replied, “one day he’s a convicted felon, the next day he’s on TV.”
    â€œIsn’t America great?” Mike said.

    W E WORRIED . W OULD T ESS RUN AWAY? W OULD SHE BARK INCESSANTLY ? Would she chase the chickens? And most upsetting of all, would she try to herd the pig? (This wouldn’t go over with Chris, we were sure.)
    But she did none of these things. She ignored the other animals. She was entirely and obsessively focused on us.
    Things went astonishingly well at first. The moment we got her to her new home, we first spent some time playing with her favorite tennis ball in the yard. Howard would toss, and Tess ran after it like the wind. Unless you watched her very carefully, you would never suspect the weakness in her right rear leg. She leaped into the air—all four legs off the ground—seized the ball in her jaws, and then whipped back to us, spitting the toy into our outstretched hands. Although Howard had by far the better arm, Tess brought it back to me every other time. She was keeping track. We played until her tongue was hanging out.
    It then occurred to us that Tess should probably empty her bladder before coming into the house. I led